Method and Experiment Study of the Array Shape Calibration for Underwater Vertical Line Arrays

Abstract

Vertical line arrays have been widely used in underwater target location and noise measurement, and the attitude and shape of the vertical array have a significant influence on detection accuracy. The paper presents an array shape calibration method for underwater vertical acoustic array-based measurement systems. Firstly, a standard acoustic source was used to transmit underwater acoustic signals at a certain distance from the acoustic array, and the target location based on the received data of the acoustic array was estimated concerning distance and depth to obtain the two-dimensional ambiguity function of the depth and distance of the array. Then, the ambiguity function was used to calculate the center depth and the inclination angle of the vertical acoustic array and to further obtain the shape and location information of the acoustic array. Finally, a lake experiment study was carried out. The results showed that the calibrated array shape was in good agreement with the actual location, and the sound source location estimated by using the calibrated array shape was consistent with the actual sound source location, thereby effectively reducing the impact on the measurement accuracy due to the inclination of the measurement system under the influence of water current.